Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant (35) prepares to dunk the ball against the Sacramento Kings in the third quarter at Sleep Train Arena. / Cary Edmondson, USA TODAY Sports

by Sam Amick, USA TODAY Sports

by Sam Amick, USA TODAY Sports

LeBron James' place on the Mount Rushmore of MVP winners will have to wait.

Kevin Durant deserves the hardware this time around.

The Oklahoma City Thunder star has been playing the unwelcome part of second-best for quite some time now, his talent universally recognized as transcendent but his accomplishments almost always falling short of the man from Miami. But James, who has won the league's top individual award in four of the past five seasons and was surely hoping to become just the fourth player in league history to win a fifth, simply couldn't keep up with Durant this time around.

Durant wins in almost every way when it comes to the latest race for the Maurice Podoloff trophy, from his superior scoring to his vastly-improved all-around game to the part that he played in the Thunder's defense which is currently the fifth-best in the NBA. Yet the best part of their duel, this season-long square-off that was the most compelling MVP theatre we've seen since Magic Johnson & Larry Bird or Michael Jordan & Karl Malone, is the admirable way these two future Hall of Famers go about their business.

They are tone-setters for their respective team cultures, men whose minds are far more focused on matters like team chemistry and the pursuit of a championship than they are on dominating the highlight reel on any given night. They both handled hardship while carrying their teams for long stretches, with James' sidekick, Dwyane Wade, sitting for nearly a third of the season with various ailments and Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook missing eight weeks because of his latest knee surgery.

The unfair part, the part that made this a two-man race right about the time the Indiana Pacers' Paul George was fading and the Los Angeles Clippers' Chris Paul fell victim to an injury that unofficially ended his chances, is that no one entertains as effortlessly as Durant and James. Durant just did it more often.

The 25-year-old who fell to James' Heat in the 2012 NBA Finals is on the verge of becoming the fifth player in league history to win at least four scoring titles, and his 32 points per game is not only on track to be a new career high but nearly five points per game better than the second-place scorer, the New York Knicks' Carmelo Anthony. Remarkably, he did it within the context of his most versatile season yet. Ironically, he had to become more LeBron-like, one might say, in order to finally get the best of LeBron on this front.

James has been a special kind of selfless since his days at St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, Ohio, as capable of being an All-Star point guard as he was a small forward. His defense has become a personal point of pride as well, with his two-way talents so elite last season that he was upset when he didn't win the league's Defensive Player of the Year award.

Durant had evolved in each of his previous six seasons, but the Swiss-Army-knife element of his game had never been anywhere near as good as this. He's on pace to set a career high in assists (5.6 compared to James' 6.5), is second to Anthony among small forwards in rebounding (7.6 per game), and played a major part in the Thunder's elite defensive showing (they're fifth in the NBA, while the Heat are 10th). At this rate, he will become just the fourth player in league history to average at least 32 points, seven rebounds and five assists (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bob McAdoo, and Michael Jordan are the others).

Nothing will be official until the votes are tallied, of course. But make no mistake, Durant deserves to be the 2013-14 MVP.